it is not an accident of
this or that particular agitation. Perhaps in no direction is it more
convincingly manifested than in the prevailing tone of opinion, or at
least of publicly expressed opinion, in regard to the objects and ideals
of universities. That in the present state of the world's economic and
social development on the one hand, and of the various sciences on the
other, "service"--that is, service directly conducive to the general
good--should be regarded as one of the great objects of universities, is
altogether right; that it should be spoken of as their _only_ object,
which is the ruling fashion, is most deplorable. The object of a
university, said Mill, is to keep philosophy alive; yet it would go hard
with the present generation to point to any one more truly and profoundly
devoted to the service, the uplifting, of the masses of mankind than was
John Stuart Mill. Were he living he would recognize, as thoroughly as the
best efficiency man of them all, that the universities of today have
opportunities and duties which were undreamed of half a century ago. But
he would know, too, that in those activities which are directed to the
promotion of practical efficiency, the university is but one of many
agencies, and that if it were not doing the work some other means would be
found for supplying the demand. Its paramount value he would find now, as
he did then, in the service it renders not to the ordinary needs of the
community but to the higher intellectual interests and strivings of
mankind. That so few of us have the courage clearly to assert a position
even distantly approaching this--such a position as was mere matter of
course among university men in the last generation--is perhaps the most
significant of all the indications of our drift toward Flatland.

THE DISFRANCHISEMENT OF PROPERTY

I

It is Hawthorne, I think, who tells us that when he was a boy he used once
in a while to go down to the wharves in Salem, and lay his hand on the
rail of some great East India merchantman, redolent of spices, and thus
bring himself in actual touch with the mysterious orient. But there is
nothing strange in this: almost anything that we can feel or see may start
the flight of fancy, and open to us prophetic visions. This is even true
of such dry symbols as figures, for our journalists would never publish
statistics as they do, unless they knew that their readers liked to see
them. Travellers from other pa